0107 Yes, Tomasello’s term, “shared intentionality”, is more than about food.  Any dog will tell you this.  Domestication has a multitude of rewards.

Now, I examine the role of the bipedal ape near the snake.

0108 Yes, the affordance of my friend’s warning is valuable for me (and my reproductive success).

According to Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), this two level interscope harbors a sign.  The scholastics call this sign, “specificative extrinsic formal causality”.  I call it “a specifying sign”.

0109 According to Peirce, a sign-relation consists of three elements: a sign-interpretant (SI), a sign-object (SO) and a sign-vehicle (SV).  Unlike the category-based nested form, there is no simple assignment of categories to each element.  The reason is obvious.  Both the sign-object and the sign-vehicle belong to secondness, the realm of actuality.  That leaves the sign-interpretant as… um… belonging to both thirdness, the realm of normal context, and firstness, the realm of potential.

The above two-level interscope offers a frame for these odd assignments.

The following figure includes the three elements of a sign-relation.

The subscript, “s”, denotes specifying sign.

0110 In terms of the specifying sign-relation, my friend’s hand talk, “[SNAKE] [THERE]_2a” (SV_s) stands for an immediate need to avoid danger_2b (SO_s) in regards to what it means to me_3a operating on the potential of encountering a snake_1b (SI_s).

0111 This only works when both me (the one near the snake) and my teammate (the one pointing out the danger) share the same content-level category-based nested form.

How do we know what is happening_3a and the potential of ‘something’ happening_1a without a method to arrive at a common ground?

This is a very good question.

0112 Chapter three of Tomasello’s book concerns intentional communication among great apes.

There are two broad types of significant gestures: intentional movements and attention getters.

0113 A fun example consists of one young chimpanzee raising an arm while approaching another youngster.  This is a specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s).  The sign-object (SO_s) says, “Let’s play!”

0114 Here is the specifying sign.

0115 Do chimpanzee youngsters already know this sign?

I ask because I cannot figure how the youngsters already sense what is happening_3a or the potential of ‘something happening_1a, upon the occurrence of the raised arm gesture_2a.

I can only conclude that what is happening_3a and the potential of ‘something happening’_1a are the sign-interpretant of another sign and the sign-object of that sign is the raised arm.

In order to imagine this, a perspective-level actuality_2c is needed.

0116 Here is a picture, using the scholastic three-level interscope for how humans think.

0117 I don’t know whether scholastics have a formal causality for this sign-relation.  But, I call it “the interventional sign”.  The interventional sign is odd in so far as the actuality of the sign-vehicle_2c is mental and the actuality of the sign-object_2a is a gestural action.

It makes me wonder, is the raised arm of a young, playful, chimpanzee the sign-vehicle of the specifying sign or the sign-object of the interventional sign?

Oh, the answer is obvious.

It_2a must be both.

This is the conclusion found in Looking at Daniel Dennett’s Book (2017) “From Bacteria, To Bach and Back” in Razie Mah’s blog for December 2023.

0118 Surely, the intentionality_2c of the arm raise_2a is built into the chimpanzee as a phenotypic trait.

Surely, the sign-interpretant (SI_i) of the interventional sign informs both chimpanzee youngsters what is happening_3a and the potential of ‘something happening’_1a.

0119 But, the intention is not to inform.  The intention is to play_2c.

Consequently, there is a qualitative difference between the example of the arm raise_2a for the chimpanzee (as a stand-in for the last common ancestor) and the example of [SNAKE][THERE] of the early hominin (either Australopithecus or Homo genus).

0120 In chapter three, Tomasello shows that human newborns and infants innately sense that intention_2c underlies specifying signs.

To explain this fact, Tomasello proposes his cooperation model.  Shared intentionality presupposes a background sense of the other as a candidate for cooperative agency.  This requires (1) cognitive skills for creating joint attention and intentions and (2) social motivations for helping and sharing with others.  Tomasello labels these formal requirements, (1) “common conceptual ground” and (2) “mutual expectations”.

0121 Do the interventional and specifying signs for the chimpanzee arm raise meet these requirements.

Here is a picture of the sequence, in the scholastic three-level interscope. 

0122 In the (apparently inside out) interventional sign-relation, I intend to play_2c (SV_i) stands for a raised arm_2a (SO_i) with respect to what is happening_3a operating on the potential of ‘something happening’_1a (SI_i).

In the (more familiarly structured) specifying sign-relation, a raised arm_2a (SV_s) stands for let us play_2b (SO_s) in regards to what it means to me_3b operating on the potential meaning of ‘raised arm’_1b (SI_s).

0123 For all practical purposes, this model works just fine for great apes and perhaps, bipedal australopithecines.  One youngster does not inform the other youngster about content as much as provide a signal to initiate a desired situation.

As soon as the other example is presented in the same manner, then one australopithecine informs another about content and that content initiates the desired situation.  How else is one friend going to warn another?

0124 Some of the hallmarks of human communication are apparent in this diagram, when compared to the prior diagram.

There is the sense that one hominin is the communicator and the other hominin receives a communication.

The intent is to inform.

Just as in youthful chimpanzee play, both hominins share a common conceptual ground. Both know the pantomime-word “snake”.  Both know that the pointing finger means “there”.  There is a mutual expectation that [SNAKE][THERE]_2aspecifies something real_1a in the normal context of what is happening_3a.  So, mutual expectation initiates a situation common to both, just like chimpanzee play.

0125 But, doesn’t there seem to be a missing sign?

In the first example, the missing sign is not so obvious.

In the second example, it is.

The missing sign is called the exemplar sign.  The exemplar sign is first discussed in Comments on John Deely’s Book (1994) New Beginnings.  A more recent discussion is found in Razie Mah’s blog for November 2023, titled Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) Semiotic Animal. 

0126 Here is a diagram.

0127 Note the substitutions in the perspective-level of the scholastic three-level interscope for how humans think.

The normal context_3c is not, “Does this make sense?_3c“.  It_3c is a common conceptual ground_3c.  If the common conceptual ground_3c does not make sense, then how can it be held in common?  This provides a high standard for hominin thinking, doesn’t it?

Also, the potential_1c is not, “the possibility of contextualizing the situation_1c“.  It_1c is the possibilities inherent in mutual expectations_1c.

0128 The above figure captures the message of chapter three, titled “Hominin Cooperative Communication”.

0129 Figure 3.1 in chapter three presents a schematic of a cooperative model of human communication.  The communicator is depicted as one head.  The recipient is portrayed as a second head.  The two heads face one another.  Arrows pass from the communicator to the recipient through a gray-box labeled, norms of cooperation and cooperative reason.

“Norms of cooperation” sounds like common conceptual ground_3c and the potential of ‘mutual expectations’_1c.

“Cooperative reason” seems like making sense_3c and the potential of ‘contextualizing the situation’_1c.

0130 Here is the corresponding figure derived from this examination.

0131 What a difference!

Human communication does not proceed from communicator to recipient.  It proceeds by filling in the empty slots of the scholastic three-level interscope for how humans think.

Plus, this picture fits hand-in-glove with Tomasello’s assertion that hominin communication is conducted in hand talk, starting with pantomime and pointing.

Finally, in terms of natural history, some of the expansion of the brain, when going from the southern ape (Australopithecus) to handy man (Homo habilis) and to man-stand-tall (Homo erectus), can be attributed to adding more and more elements to this three-level interscope.

Yes, hominin brains embody more and more specifying, exemplar and interventional sign-relations.

Or something like that.

0132 Here is a good time to pause and assess Tomasello’s three interlocking hypotheses.

So far, two of them are pertinent to the examination.

0133 Plus, this business of sign-relations adds another way to look at the picture so far.

0134 What about language?

In order to approach the topic of language, I must provide a little background in natural signs.

According to Peirce, there are three types on natural sign.  They are distinguished by the categorical qualities of their sign object.  

Here is a picture.

0135 The icon refers to the whole by depicting a part.  The part may represent the whole.  The hand-talk word, [SNAKE], is a wiggling hand moving forward.  The image should be fairly recognizable.  Pantomime exercises icons.

The index points in the direction of the reference.  The hand-talk word, [THERE], can also be [ME] or [YOU].  The referent is real, but may depend on the ongoing situation.

The symbol is real in so far as it is supported by convention and habit. The implication?  As iconic and indexal manual-brachial gestures are routinized, they become more and more distinct from one another.  They become more and more as symbols.  Symbols are real when they are easily distinguished from one another and readily interpreted by convention and habit.

0136 Now, I ask, “Do symbols constitute language?”

Yes, symbols are responsible because each symbol in a finite order is distinct from any other symbol.  A finite set of symbols constitutes a symbolic order (from one point of view) or a system of differences (from another point of view). 

The term, “symbolic order”, emphasizes the order within the set.  Order allows symbolic operations among distinct members, sort of like the formalization of conventions. Formalization allows the construction of complex concepts.  The three-level interscope is an example of a purely relational structure that formalizes a symbolic construction. For language, these operations are called “grammar”.  

The term, “system of differences”, emphasizes the fact that each symbol is different from any other symbol.  Difference speeds up the recognition of each symbol.  At the turn of the last century, a scientific linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, recognizes this trait in spoken languages.  He technically defines spoken language as two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (speech) and langue (the mental processing that occurs in response to talk).

This is sort of confusing.

Who would imagine that language consists in two systems of differences, composed of symbols?

0137 Symbols, by themselves, do not necessarily represent anything real.  What do I mean by the term, “real”?  The scholastics use the Latin term, “ens reale“, meaning mind-independent being.  Icons and indexes picture and point to ens reale.  Symbols are ens rationis, or mind-dependent beings.  Symbols are testimonials to conventions, laws and traditions.  In short, symbols are ens rationis, even though they may conventionalize very real habits of action.

Icons and indexes are natural signs.  They touch base with ens reale.

Symbols are natural signs that facilitate ens rationis.

0138 Perhaps, “language” smells like… well… a funky, yet fragrant, perfume named, “Symbolize My Icons and Indexes”.

One cannot picture or point to the smell.

But, the scent clings to every icon and index.

Language evolves in the milieu of hand talk.

Language evolves as the icons and indexes of hand talk operate as symbols in a system of differences.

0139 A brief recap is in order.

Icons are sign-relations where the sign-object is based on the principle of similarity.  Pantomime in hand talk fits this principle.  Pantomime represents ens reale.

Indexes are sign-relations where the sign-object is based on the principles of contact, contiguity and pointing.  Pointing and directional manual-brachial gestures fit this principle.  Pointing represents ens reale.

Symbols are sign-relations where the sign-object is based on the principles of habit, convention, tradition and law.  Symbols do not image or point to ens reale.  However icons and indexes take on the character of symbols as they become, as Tomasello puts it, “conventionalized”.

0140 Now, for the next stage of my examination of Tomasello’s argument on language, I return to the scholastic picture for the way humans think.

0141 I know that each actuality may be rendered as a sign-object for one sign and a sign-vehicle for the next sign. A specifying sign-object_2b (SO_s) induces an exemplar sign vehicle_2b (SV_e).  An exemplar sign-object_2c (SO_e) induces an interventional sign-vehicle_2c (SI_s) and so on.

0142 When I consider each actuality as a sign-object of one of the three signs, I draw the following correlation.

0143 The specifying sign comes first.  The sign-object (SO_s) is perception_2b.  Perception_2b works on icons and indexes in nature as well as in hand talk.  Icons and indexes are sensible signs in this regard.  They have referents that exist in mind-independent reality, ens reale.

0144 The exemplar sign comes next.  The sign-object (SO_e) is a judgment_2c. Typically, this judgment brings an intelligible aspect of perception_2b (what ought to be) into relation with a universal aspect of sensation_2a (what is).  This judgment_2c fits the message of the word, “rational”, because perception_2b and sensation_2a are brought into balance (that is, into a ratio). In doing so, SO_e embodies reason.

Note that I don’t use the term, “manifests”.  I use the term, “embodies”.

Reason is built into our bodies and brains.

0145 The interventional sign comes next.  The sign-object (SO_i) is a symbol, because its sign-vehicle (SV_i) is a judgment and judgments are mind-dependent beings (ens rationis).  This sign-object (SO_i) is decoded into a specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s).  The specifying sign vehicle (SV_s) will be situated as an icon or index (SO_s).

0146 Hand talk exemplifies hominin communication.

Tomasello’s argument on language may be re-articulated using Peircean triadic relations, formulated as the scholastic interscope of the way humans think and three interlocking sign-relations, consisting of the specifying, the exemplar and the interventional signs.

Here is a picture of the result.

0147 In hominin evolution, conventionalization is built into the use of hand talk.  Hand talk goes with joint attention.  Joint attention is an adaptation to sociogenesis. Sociogenesis is the human niche.

0148 How does this fit into Saussure’s paradigm?

If the interventional sign-object (SO_i) and the specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s) may be classified as parole, or “talk”, then the remainder of the three-level interscope may be associated with langue, or “language”.

Here is the resulting figure.

0149 The above figure plays into chapter four, titled “Ontogenic origins”, and chapter six, titled “The Grammatical Dimension”.  

Once parole and langue satisfy the criteria of two systems of differences, then hand talk meets Saussure’s definition of language, as two related systems of differences.

With speech-alone talk, the relation is arbitrary.  Formant frequencies for any particular spoken word are arbitrarily associated to a particular way of decoding the word and placing it in the slot for species impressa_2a. 

In contrast, with hand talk, each gesture-word carries the natural sign qualities of icons and indexes, so the specifying sign-vehicle is decoded in ways that picture and point to its referent.  I call the relation, “motivated”, instead of “arbitrary”.

0150 Tomasello spends a good deal of time discussing the issue of grammar.

To me, the question boils down to the cultivation of symbolic operations among elements within a symbolic order.

Symbolic order pertains to parole, in so far as each gestural word becomes more and more distinct from other gestural words.  Symbolic order speeds recognition.

Symbolic order pertains to langue, in that each three-level interscope must be distinct.  This is a tall order.  Grammarpackages statements in order to assist the specifying sign (which favors icons and indexes), exemplar sign (which favors rational judgments) and the subsequent interventional sign (which expresses a conviction, since hand talk cannot picture or point to the elements of judgment, much less the triadic relation that constitutes judgment).

0151 No wonder Tomasello is so wound up about grammar.  Grammar is like a knot that keeps tying itself into a new knot, even while the inquirer is trying to untie it.

Complete sentences (SO_i) craft impressions (SV_s).

Well-crafted sentences produce impressions_2a, that trigger perceptions_2b, that call to mind convictions_2c.

Just ask Rhett and Rick…

0152  … if you can get their joint attention.

Here is a picture of the pair, as one hand talks to the other, saying “[SNAKE][THERE]”.

0153 This raises the very important question concerns why Rhett and Rick engage in joint attention in the first place.

Joint attention is the adaptation.  Sociogenesis labels the corresponding niche.

0154 In order to appreciate the “socio” of “sociogenesis”, I turn to Comments on John Gowlett, Clive Gamble, and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Dunbar introduces a breakthrough model in evolutionary anthropology.  The brain size to body size ratio associates to group size.  Great apes and southern apes have a ratio that corresponds to a group of 50 (a band).

In addition to this, these three anthropologists suggest that there is some sort of structural pattern within the band (50) that magnifies or reduces by a factor of three.  They call the structures, “social circles”.  The smaller social circles are family (5), intimates (5), and teams (15).  The larger social circles (which exist in the realm of potential for the southern apes) are community (150), mega-band (500) and tribe (1500).

0155 So, the answer to the question, asking “Why are Rhett and Rick engaging in joint attention in the first place?”, must concern social circles.

0156 Thinking Big (2014) comes out six years after Origins of Human Communication (2008).  The fact that both books appear within a decade of one another shows the ferment in the discipline of evolutionary anthropology.

0157 “Ontogeny” is in the title of chapter four.

“Ontogeny” is an awkward term.

In philosophy, the discipline of “ontology” studies the “logos” (or “word”) of “ontos”.  Ontos?  Ontos is esse_ce, that is, being substantiated.  Yes, that is “essence without the ‘n'”.  The only way to figure out esse_ce (being substantiated) is by considering essence, (substantiated form).  This leads to a question, asking, “What discipline studies the nature of essence?”

Who knows the answer to that?

How about aesthetics, the art of appreciation?

0158 Esse_ce and essence participate in Aristotle’s hylomorphe, which happens to exemplify Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle, the two real elements are matter (or, for relations, being) and form.  The contiguity is placed in brackets for clear notation.  I select the word, [substance], as a technical term describing the contiguity between being and form.

Here is a picture.

0159 So, “ontogeny”, must mean “the genesis of being”, or something like that.  Ontogeny associates with esse_ce and corresponds to the innate development of a phenotype.  Since the human phenotype is designed to internalize culture and traditions, disentangling the innate from the cultural is most difficult, except for newborns and infants.  Cognitive psychologists study the mental development of these tempermental, yet fascinating, creatues.

0160 “Phylogeny” is in the title of chapter five.

“Phylogeny” is less problematic.

Phylogeny associates to natural history.  For biologists, the Darwinian paradigm says, “Descent with modification”. Through natural selection, modifications become adaptations.  Adaptations emerge from (and situate) a niche.  A niche is a potential independent of the adapting species.

Tomasello identifies a key adaptation characteristic of humans that is not found in the great apes (and presumably, the last common ancestor between the chimpanzees and humans).  That adaptation is joint attention.  Shared intentionalityemerges from (and situates) sociogenesis, the ability to form societies.

0161 Thus, chapters four and five give me the two real elements in Tomasello’s hylomorphe, pictured below.

I wonder whether the intrepid reader can find a another label for the term, “substance”.

0162 In the chapter on ontogenetic origins, the reader encounters the crux of hominin communication, the ability to inform, request and share content (that is, information)_2c, in the normal context of a common cognitive ground_3c, on the basis of mutual expectations_1c.

0163 To me, this associates to the perspective-level of the scholastic picture of the way humans think, now adjusted for Tomasello’s insights.

Here is a picture.

0164 The perspective level corresponds to the sign-object and the sign-interpretant of the exemplar sign (SO_e and SI_e).   The sign-vehicle (SV_e) is perception.

The exemplar sign arises from a specifying sign and leads to an interventional sign.

I conclude that, in terms of phenotype, humans are innately prepared to embody exemplar sign-relations.

0165 So, what about newborns and infants?

Oh, they must first figure out specifying signs.  They do so by experiencing the interventional signs of family and friends.  As soon as tykes express sensible interventional signs, they have mastered the art of specifying signs and are on their way to developing their own suite of exemplar signs.

On their way?

One never stops developing exemplar signs.

0166 So, that leads me to ask, “Does the above interscope serve as a label for the substance between phenotype and adaptation?  Or does the word, ‘culture’?”

0167 What are the phylogenetic origins of human communication?

0168 Tomasello works from two buckets of inquiry.

One bucket is filled with observations of great apes in the wild and in captivity.  These observations are modeled by biologists and cognitive scientists.  These species represent our last common ancestor (more or less).  The great apes do not diverge.  Our lineage does.

Biological uniformitarianism predicts that some sort of continuous line connects the last common ancestor (LCA) to ourselves.  Tomasello isolates a key feature of hominin communication that corresponds to an early adaptation.  Joint attention and shared intentionality are adaptations into sociogenesis, occurring after the genetic divergence between the chimpanzee and human lineages, around 7Myr (million of years ago).

Tomasello’s phylogenetic origins hypothesis proposes that, after this divergence, hominin cooperative behaviors become adaptive in an environment where mutual collaborative activities pay off.

0169 One question is, “When?”

A change in geological eras might do the trick.  The Pliocene era begins around 5.3Myr.  Bipedal australopithecines(southern apes) appear in the fossil record around 4.2Myr.  The adaptation of bipedalism associates to savannah and woodland environments.  Hominids walk from one area rich in seasonal resources to another.  Do some of the species within this genus develop mutually collaborative activities?

That is…, “Do some australopithecines develop teams?”

I suspect so.

0170 Communication is one aspect of these mutual collaborative activities.

Hominin cooperative communication, what I call “hand talk”, emerges as part and parcel of the adaptation of joint attention and shared intentionality.  Hand talk evolves within each of these mutual collaborative activities.  Hand talk adapts to teams.

0171 The other bucket is filled with observations of newborns and infants at home and in psychological laboratories.  These observations are modeled by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists.  These cute little bundles of joy represent later hominins, before civilization, and maybe, before the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens. 

Or, maybe they represent early hominins, like those australopithecines.

Perhaps that is why learning to walk is like the best thing… I mean… the best!

0172 Tomasello’s ontogenetic origins hypothesis states, more or less, “Human newborns and infants cooperate, collaborate and communicate.  They display the characteristics of shared intentionality, prior to the acquisition of language.”

0173 Soon after their first birthday, infants start to communicate cooperatively.  By three years old, they are aware of language’s normative dimension.

To me, these observations imply that the infant figures out the specifying sign by one year and is uses the interventional sign to communicate.  The exemplar sign?  Surely, the exemplar sign must be involved in the circuit of sign-processing.  Perhaps, it is crucial to hominin cooperativity.

0174 Here is a picture of Tomasello’s hylomorphe, with research into cognitive development substituting for ontogeny (phenotype) and research into the evolutionary psychology of joint attention substituting for phylogeny (adaptation).

0175 Can the substance, the contiguity between these two research programs, be labeled, “culture”?

Yes, labels can be applied to anything.

No, Tomasello’s adjustment to the scholastic interscope for how humans think seems to be a better descriptor for the substance in the above figure.